Man the harpoons! THAR BE WHALES!View attachment 659496
GO Big, or Go Home! I'll see your punny 4-7 person eVTOL and raise you 40!
Flying bus: Braeden Kelekona elaborates on his staggering 40-seat eVTOL
eVTOLS, or electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, are a hot topic at the moment. Dozens, even hundreds of companies are working at fever pitch to create the new class of clean, quiet, cheap air taxi that many believe will fundamentally transform our cities in the coming decades. You could…newatlas.com
When the range equation is explained there’s no consideration given to a climb fraction. Gaining altitude is a fundamental part of an aircraft operation, and the energy is more or less lost (regeneration recovery on descending are really poor). Even a modest climb will take a massive chunk out of the range;- 1000m (3000ft ish) will nearly half the available range.
When the range equation is explained there’s no consideration given to a climb fraction. Gaining altitude is a fundamental part of an aircraft operation.
I suspect a lot of these outfits are going to push for the absolute minimum climb possible, enough to get them above power wires and not a lot more. Attitudes to aviation rulemaking were why Uber as a designer/operator particularly worried me, and I'm not sure the sector as a whole is markedly better.
I do wonder how robust these evtols will be under the intensive flight schedules that they are expected to undertake everyday. For example look at this concept by Bell. They understand how rugged these electric helicopters really need to be and you can see that in their design, especially the rotors.When the range equation is explained there’s no consideration given to a climb fraction. Gaining altitude is a fundamental part of an aircraft operation.
I suspect a lot of these outfits are going to push for the absolute minimum climb possible, enough to get them above power wires and not a lot more. Attitudes to aviation rulemaking were why Uber as a designer/operator particularly worried me, and I'm not sure the sector as a whole is markedly better.
I suspect you’re right;- It always amusing that their CGI shows perfect blue sky weather. The everyday ultra low level environment is real nasty in terms of turbulence, hence vibration/shock. This will not only be deeply unpleasant for the pax, it will be rough on the components. In fact a lot of the claimed reliability improvement will be more than lost to the sustained hammering. Another thought is the adequacy of existing components design and qualifications standards which were never intended to cover such extremes. I wonder how robust this new industry will be to loss of life especially in its early operation?
Very robust... They don't seem to care.
I hope this isn't going to annoy anyone too much but by simple potential energy and L/D ratio calcs the energy for climb is definitely not half the range, at least not for an aircraft with a reasonably sensible battery, ie 50 to 60kW.hrs say. 3000m climb is 3000(m) x 1500(kg) x 9.81 = approx. 45Mj which is roughly 12kW.hrs, and the descent can be at reduced power (there is some transfer of potential to kinetic energy). 10:1 L/D gives drag of 1500N which is 100kW of power at 66m/s, so 50km = 75Mj = roughly 21kW.hrs, leaving 40% of the battery capacity unused for reserves, even assuming none of the reduced power descent benefit.
When the range equation is explained there’s no consideration given to a climb fraction. Gaining altitude is a fundamental part of an aircraft operation, and the energy is more or less lost (regeneration recovery on descending are really poor). Even a modest climb will take a massive chunk out of the range;- 1000m (3000ft ish) will nearly half the available range. Obstacle clearance, basic low flying legal requirements, deconfliction, low level turbulence, noise abatement, minimising visual intrusion (the cause of 25% of low flying complaints in London) all drive the need gain altitude.
Also the range doesn’t include meto factors such as headwind, and/or icing which if you’re offering a scheduled service needs to consider the worst possible.
Hence an 80 mile, 2D ideal range could drop to a 20-30 miles real world range typically flights of about 12-15minutes. Under such real world unpleasantness, the 15% reserve turns into 5-10 minutes flying. With these short ranges inherently other unavoidable practical issues appear;- such as you need a vacant charger at your landing site. The charger itself needs to provide a lot of juice and bunch of them will need a fair diameter of copper cable for supply. Furthermore if a landing location becomes blocked, say due to a incident, maybe a pax heart attack, where do all those inbound go? Top of building landing is banned in New York due to historical accidents? Remember they’ve only singular minutes to sort this out? This makes the notion of a large, on demand service somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible
Apologies for the truth hammer tap.
Climb angle is much smaller than I think you'd guess at least once above 1000ft. The main point would be that for the claimed intra-city flights the height changes are very significant part of the energy loss and for anything over 10km not so much. I think the energy conversion from height to range is better than you think except for low altitude in city flights where descent is probably more like helicopter operations and lossy.I agree with your figures for a simple potential energy at altitude followed by a cruise. But it’s not including any efficiency loss (apart from LD) for either sector. Furthermore I reckon climb at high power and AOA (climb at high Cl) has much more loss than the simple equations indicate. Also in a controlled descent you can’t recover every last bit of energy into range. Normally in order to maintain a controlled glide path into a landing zone you’re required to increase drag by some means;- flap or airbrake or beta pitch. This is exacerbated by being pushed into control zones for deconfliction etc.
As I’ve mentioned earlier in this thread, I welcome the investors interest and funding but my concern is the due diligence. Some really good, if modest, schemes are being sidelined when investors are chasing graphic artist designs and incredibly ambitious projects. I remain unconvinced it will end well.
Lilium’s CPO on the massively expensive challenge of eVTOL certification
There's a billion-dollar elephant in the room; any startup that wants to bring an eVTOL air taxi into commercial service needs to structure its entire operation to meet the same aerospace standards Boeing does. Does anyone have the money?newatlas.com
This article gives a good overview of the challenges facing certification.
That said, a couple of things did catch my eye:
"Our aircraft is super simple," says Yemsi. "Thirty-six electric ducted fans"
Umm, imagine the number of different engine-out scenarios to be covered! The numbers should give redundancy, but they do it at the price of system complexity
I just would like to point the diverging approach their configuration force them to face, having a weight constraint that is aggravated by their configuration (blade loading): the less the weight the more complex effects of the modal response they will have to face, geometrically, dynamically (variable aerodynamic response at blade level) and of course in material failure.
To which add transient conditions during transition between horizontal and vertical flight. If they have a situation where they can't safely transition, just what is their capability for a rolling landing?
To which add transient conditions during transition between horizontal and vertical flight. If they have a situation where they can't safely transition, just what is their capability for a rolling landing?
With the landing gear as currently shown, I would suggest it’s got virtually no rolling landing capability at all. It’s not braced for forward or aft for the loads, the wheels are tiny with no compliant sidewall depth, and no wheel brakes….just how does it stop if rolling?
It's even worse on the side view. It's supposed to be an airfoil, but what unfortunate misshapen airfoil is that!? Does it even have a NACA number?Man the harpoons! THAR BE WHALES!View attachment 659496
GO Big, or Go Home! I'll see your punny 4-7 person eVTOL and raise you 40!
Flying bus: Braeden Kelekona elaborates on his staggering 40-seat eVTOL
eVTOLS, or electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, are a hot topic at the moment. Dozens, even hundreds of companies are working at fever pitch to create the new class of clean, quiet, cheap air taxi that many believe will fundamentally transform our cities in the coming decades. You could…newatlas.com
It's even worse on the side view. It's supposed to be an airfoil, but what unfortunate misshapen airfoil is that!? Does it even have a NACA number?
Jmspeedfreak is right. This is one of many very bad cgi jokes.
Man the harpoons! THAR BE WHALES!View attachment 659496
GO Big, or Go Home! I'll see your punny 4-7 person eVTOL and raise you 40!
Flying bus: Braeden Kelekona elaborates on his staggering 40-seat eVTOL
eVTOLS, or electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, are a hot topic at the moment. Dozens, even hundreds of companies are working at fever pitch to create the new class of clean, quiet, cheap air taxi that many believe will fundamentally transform our cities in the coming decades. You could…newatlas.com
Hop / parabola trajectory? Though at first appearances that might be stretching the capabilities of the 'Flying Bus'.Note 1) the altitude and 2) that the fans are still mostly in a vertical lift mode.
Hop / parabola trajectory? Though at first appearances that might be stretching the capabilities of the 'Flying Bus'.Note 1) the altitude and 2) that the fans are still mostly in a vertical lift mode.
JetPack Aviation is initially targeting the special missions market, for example the emergency medical services (EMS). The Speeder will offer a maximum speed of 150mph (240km/h) at an altitude of up to 15,000ft, have a flight time of up to 30 minutes and be capable of producing a maximum thrust of 1,200 lbs.
The company is also considering the urban air mobility market for longer term applications. JetPack Aviation has already begun readying letters of intent for customers and taking pre-orders for the aircraft, it said.
The aircraft, which has a wingspan of 4.5 meters and seven hours of flight autonomy, was able to fly up to 150 kilos of narcotics between the coast of North Africa and southern Spain
The drone has the capability to fly for up to seven hours at a maximum speed of 170km/h....
Built in China and with a cost of anywhere between €30,000 and €150,000, depending on its technical characteristics, the drone has five motors. Four of them are electric and allow the aircraft to land and take off vertically. The fifth, a two-cylinder combustion engine, allows for horizontal flight.
The drone can reach altitudes of 2,000 meters (around 7,000 feet), but in general would fly much lower in order to save fuel and avoid detection...
The drug gang was flying the drone using an electronic system that relayed the exact takeoff and landing points, and used waypoints – i.e. places during the flight where it had to change course. It could also be flown using remote control. The police reported, however, that the criminals did not have much training or knowledge for its use. This fact, combined with the large size of the aircraft, meant it posed a considerable danger to other air traffic – even for passenger planes.
The drone can be dismantled to facilitate its transport, and was located by the authorities in a house being used as a storage location for narcotics outside Almáchar in the Axarquía area.
Well, I wouldn't want to be the designer who has to explain to a drug lord why his millions of dollars-worth of cocaine are currently not accounted for... i think that makes the designer highly motivated to succeed!And it's the most sensibly designed vtol drone in the entire thread.